Do we have an official policy on images on user pages? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the use of copyrighted materials there in a way which did not qualify as "fair use" simply be copyright infringement, in the same way it would in the article namespace? Does the law make the namespace distinction? (That sounds like a silly question in a way, but I suppose I'm referencing "safe harbor" laws.)
In the end, I think this comes down to "should we allow copyright violations on user pages?" which sounds to me like the answer would be "of course not".
Boy, wouldn't it be fun to start enforcing this! Anybody in the mood to become "most hated user, especially among the young and brittle"? If the answer is definitely "no exceptions", it would be nice to have a quote from Jimbo Wales with his thoughts on this to use as a reference, since a lot of people have strong proprietary feelings about their user pages.
FF
I saw Sam Korn enforcing that one time, dunno how far he went with it though... Yes, it is copyright infringement. No, the law doesn't care. The law has absolutely no regard for anything but the people with better lawyers.
On 9/14/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Do we have an official policy on images on user pages? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the use of copyrighted materials there in a way which did not qualify as "fair use" simply be copyright infringement, in the same way it would in the article namespace? Does the law make the namespace distinction? (That sounds like a silly question in a way, but I suppose I'm referencing "safe harbor" laws.)
In the end, I think this comes down to "should we allow copyright violations on user pages?" which sounds to me like the answer would be "of course not".
Boy, wouldn't it be fun to start enforcing this! Anybody in the mood to become "most hated user, especially among the young and brittle"? If the answer is definitely "no exceptions", it would be nice to have a quote from Jimbo Wales with his thoughts on this to use as a reference, since a lot of people have strong proprietary feelings about their user pages.
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On 9/14/05, Phroziac phroziac@gmail.com wrote:
I saw Sam Korn enforcing that one time, dunno how far he went with it though... Yes, it is copyright infringement. No, the law doesn't care. The law has absolutely no regard for anything but the people with better lawyers.
I got shouted at, became thoroughly depressed, and gave up.
All fair use images not included on articles should be candidates for speedy deletion, assuming there has been time to have included them.
Sam
Actually, add on to this another question: What about "limited licensed" images on user pages? For example, "A picture of me and my dog. For use on my user page on Wikipedia only." Obviously this wouldn't work on any article page, but do we care if such images are used on user pages?
I'd tend to lead towards "no", simply because user pages must follow Wikipedia license guidelines, I'd assume.
FF
On 9/13/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Do we have an official policy on images on user pages? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the use of copyrighted materials there in a way which did not qualify as "fair use" simply be copyright infringement, in the same way it would in the article namespace? Does the law make the namespace distinction? (That sounds like a silly question in a way, but I suppose I'm referencing "safe harbor" laws.)
In the end, I think this comes down to "should we allow copyright violations on user pages?" which sounds to me like the answer would be "of course not".
Boy, wouldn't it be fun to start enforcing this! Anybody in the mood to become "most hated user, especially among the young and brittle"? If the answer is definitely "no exceptions", it would be nice to have a quote from Jimbo Wales with his thoughts on this to use as a reference, since a lot of people have strong proprietary feelings about their user pages.
FF
Fastfission wrote:
Actually, add on to this another question: What about "limited licensed" images on user pages? For example, "A picture of me and my dog. For use on my user page on Wikipedia only." Obviously this wouldn't work on any article page, but do we care if such images are used on user pages?
I'd tend to lead towards "no", simply because user pages must follow Wikipedia license guidelines, I'd assume.
Some people have suggested putting userspace pages under "Wikipedia only" licenses by default as a solution to forks and mirrors taking user pages and the like. *If* that happened, then "limited license" images would be OK on user pages. But that's a mighty big *if*.
On 9/14/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Some people have suggested putting userspace pages under "Wikipedia only" licenses by default as a solution to forks and mirrors taking user pages and the like. *If* that happened, then "limited license" images would be OK on user pages. But that's a mighty big *if*.
Copyrights are evil. Keep it free.
User pages have no copyright exemption. We should root out and destroy any such examples, regardless of whether it'll piss people off (although we should, obviously, try and be nice about it - in most cases, people aren't trying to deliberately cause a problem).
There has been 'de facto' tolerance of unfree-with-permission images on user pages; I think this should go, too. If you're not comfortable with putting pictures of yourself, your family, your dog et al. under GFDL or another compatible license, don't put them on Wikipedia even for your userpage. After all, you could say 'Go to my personal web site for more info about me', or something - links are perfectly fine.
-Matt
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Do we have an official policy on images on user pages? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the use of copyrighted materials there in a way which did not qualify as "fair use" simply be copyright infringement, in the same way it would in the article namespace? Does the law make the namespace distinction? (That sounds like a silly question in a way, but I suppose I'm referencing "safe harbor" laws.)
In the end, I think this comes down to "should we allow copyright violations on user pages?" which sounds to me like the answer would be "of course not".
Copyright violations are one thing and should be removed. Far more sticky are other types of images that would not be copyright violations per se but are still against our general policies on image use. A great example are images under a non-commercial or used with permission license. The reason why we dont allow such images in articles is to keep the encyclopedia as free as possible. But user pages are *not* part of the encyclopedia, thus having those type of images there does not really hamper third party use of our content.
So, IMO, we should be far more lax on what we allow on user pages. Mid to long term, what we *really* need is to offer downloads of content that strip out all pages in the Wikipedia and user namespace (sic: everything that is Wikipedia-specific). This would require more extensive use of the help namespace for things like the multimedia help page and spoiler warning though.
-- mav
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On 9/14/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Do we have an official policy on images on user pages? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the use of copyrighted materials there in a way which did not qualify as "fair use" simply be copyright infringement, in the same way it would in the article namespace? Does the law make the namespace distinction? (That sounds like a silly question in a way, but I suppose I'm referencing "safe harbor" laws.)
In the end, I think this comes down to "should we allow copyright violations on user pages?" which sounds to me like the answer would be "of course not".
Copyright violations are one thing and should be removed. Far more sticky are other types of images that would not be copyright violations per se but are still against our general policies on image use. A great example are images under a non-commercial or used with permission license. The reason why we don't allow such images in articles is to keep the encyclopedia as free as possible. But user pages are *not* part of the encyclopedia, thus having those type of images there does not really hamper third party use of our content.
So, IMO, we should be far more lax on what we allow on user pages. Mid to long term, what we *really* need is to offer downloads of content that strip out all pages in the Wikipedia and user namespace (sic: everything that is Wikipedia-specific). This would require more extensive use of the help namespace for things like the multimedia help page and spoiler warning though.
Didn't we already discuss this when Pioneer-12 wanted to retain copyright to his user and talk page postings? Didn't we already decide that anything more restrictive than GFDL on Wikipedia would be license hell and not worth the trouble to administer? Didn't we already decide that the submit button was equivalent to a digital signature agreeing to the terms and conditions of submission?
I thought we already did. I hold the view that the allowable licenses should be consistent across the entire Wikipedia site, and that people should know and follow the rules in all Wikipedia locations. This includes user pages, and certainly includes images submitted as well.
On 9/14/05, Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com wrote:
Didn't we already discuss this when Pioneer-12 wanted to retain copyright to his user and talk page postings? Didn't we already decide that anything more restrictive than GFDL on Wikipedia would be license hell and not worth the trouble to administer? Didn't we already decide that the submit button was equivalent to a digital signature agreeing to the terms and conditions of submission?
I thought we already did. I hold the view that the allowable licenses should be consistent across the entire Wikipedia site, and that people should know and follow the rules in all Wikipedia locations. This includes user pages, and certainly includes images submitted as well.
This is what I was thinking. The User namespace doesn't really change the licensing situation at all. We're not actually offering people a little piece of the web to call their own -- we are not a free hosting site. (I'm pretty sure that's written in WP:WWIN somewhere)
I also think it's important that people KNOW that the User namespace could easily be re-used as well as any other, so that the whole "you're an editor on the Nazi encyclopedia" scenario doesn't seem so invasive and awful when it inevitably happens, and people realize that if they post pictures of themselves and their dog on a site which purports to be free for reuse, it might just get reused! Unless we specifically say that User pages are licensed in some other way -- which I'm not necessarily opposed to, because they're not really meant to be part of the "encyclopedia" -- I don't think we should allow people to have the impression that they are.
FF
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
I also think it's important that people KNOW that the User namespace could easily be re-used as well as any other, so that the whole "you're an editor on the Nazi encyclopedia" scenario doesn't seem so invasive and awful when it inevitably happens, and people realize that if they post pictures of themselves and their dog on a site which purports to be free for reuse, it might just get reused! Unless we specifically say that User pages are licensed in some other way -- which I'm not necessarily opposed to, because they're not really meant to be part of the "encyclopedia" -- I don't think we should allow people to have the impression that they are.
It is still perfectly reasonable for a person to naturally want to show an image of themselves or other Wikipedias at say a WikiMeet without having to release those images under a license that would allow for extensive reuse. Out of respect to users, who contribute without pay and just for the fun of it, we have always been a bit lax on what users do with their user pages.
Again, the *reason* the image use copyright policy forbids NC and special use images is that having those images in articles makes reuse needlessly difficult (even though such use is perfectly fine under GNU FDL). So given that, and the fact that user pages are not part of the encyclopedia, I think we should allow some image licenses for images on user pages and even the Wikipedia namespace that we would not allow in the article namespace.
The only issue as I see it, is that we dont give reusers the option to not download user pages and other Wikipedia-specific pages. But that is a current technical problem; not a valid reason to forever forbid NC and special use images in the user or Wikipedia namespaces.
Forbidding such images for no practical reason smacks of fascism to me. So once the technical issue I mentioned is fixed, I see no valid reason for us to not be more permissive on image licensing in the user namespace (within the limits of WP:NOT a personal web page provider)
-- mav
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I always thought it was improper that the exports contain our userpages. A simple script could replace all of these with a hardlink to the proper wikipedia page, with a disclaimer.
SV
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
I also think it's important that people KNOW that
the User namespace
could easily be re-used as well as any other, so
that the whole
"you're an editor on the Nazi encyclopedia"
scenario doesn't seem so
invasive and awful when it inevitably happens, and
people realize that
if they post pictures of themselves and their dog
on a site which
purports to be free for reuse, it might just get
reused! Unless we
specifically say that User pages are licensed in
some other way --
which I'm not necessarily opposed to, because
they're not really meant
to be part of the "encyclopedia" -- I don't think
we should allow
people to have the impression that they are.
It is still perfectly reasonable for a person to naturally want to show an image of themselves or other Wikipedias at say a WikiMeet without having to release those images under a license that would allow for extensive reuse. Out of respect to users, who contribute without pay and just for the fun of it, we have always been a bit lax on what users do with their user pages.
Again, the *reason* the image use copyright policy forbids NC and special use images is that having those images in articles makes reuse needlessly difficult (even though such use is perfectly fine under GNU FDL). So given that, and the fact that user pages are not part of the encyclopedia, I think we should allow some image licenses for images on user pages and even the Wikipedia namespace that we would not allow in the article namespace.
The only issue as I see it, is that we dont give reusers the option to not download user pages and other Wikipedia-specific pages. But that is a current technical problem; not a valid reason to forever forbid NC and special use images in the user or Wikipedia namespaces.
Forbidding such images for no practical reason smacks of fascism to me. So once the technical issue I mentioned is fixed, I see no valid reason for us to not be more permissive on image licensing in the user namespace (within the limits of WP:NOT a personal web page provider)
-- mav
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Ive written up a new policy that defines what hatnotes are, relative to disambiguations and footnotes, and recommendations for how to properly and speedily destroy them:
Wikipedia:Hatnotes
:) SV
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On 9/14/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Forbidding such images for no practical reason smacks of fascism to me. So once the technical issue I mentioned is fixed, I see no valid reason for us to not be more permissive on image licensing in the user namespace (within the limits of WP:NOT a personal web page provider)
-- mav
Practical reason #1: The submit button and accompanying text referring to the licensing of submissions are identical. We'll have to change those. #2: Inertia and lack of differentiation between user space and the rest of Wikipedia. People already expect to be able to take items from all of Wikipedia under GFDL license. #3: License hell as described in the next paragraph.
If we make an arbitrary exception, I think it could ONLY apply from whatever point we choose going forward. Current content has already been submitted under the old terms. Deletion of previous content is really just a courtesy to whoever requests it, as mirrors already have the previous content. If the original owners / authors / photographers submitted it, they've already granted the license. If they weren't the original owner / author / photographer, then we delete since if the submitter couldn't legally grant the license agreed upon submission.
This all seems like a lot of work and fuss to avoid telling someone to host the information they don't want to license on any of a vast number of free webhosts. We don't have to be nasty about enforcing our policy, but since mirrors exist, it is probably a good idea to reaffirm what people have agreed to upon submission and strongly suggest that they have their content removed if that license was not their intent.
--- Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com wrote:
Practical reason #1: The submit button and accompanying text referring to the licensing of submissions are identical. We'll have to change those.
And that would be hard??
#2: Inertia and lack of differentiation between user space and the rest of Wikipedia. People already expect to be able to take items from all of Wikipedia under GFDL license.
Why would reusers even want or need to also have user pages? Also, from my experience, users in general do not like to have their user pages on other websites. So keeping user pages in the same database dump that reusers use has no practical benefit to anybody except maybe the person who creates the database dumps (exporting everything and only having one dump is easier).
#3: License hell as described in the next paragraph.
If we make an arbitrary exception, I think it could ONLY apply from whatever point we choose going forward. Current content has already been submitted under the old terms.
The old terms, as you put it, do not allow any NC or special use images. So what is your point? Do you mean to say that all NC and special use images now marked for deletion be deleted regardless of what namespace they were displayed from?
-- mav
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On 9/14/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Why would reusers even want or need to also have user pages? Also, from my experience, users in general do not like to have their user pages on other websites. So keeping user pages in the same database dump that reusers use has no practical benefit to anybody except maybe the person who creates the database dumps (exporting everything and only having one dump is easier).
Personally I couldn't care less if my userpage was used on another site, even the nazipedia, as long as it's labeled that i'm a wikipedia user. The {{userpage}} template has recently been obfuscated, which would keep it from accidently being changed.
On 9/14/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com wrote:
Practical reason #1: The submit button and accompanying text referring to the licensing of submissions are identical. We'll have to change those.
And that would be hard??
It depends. Do you want users to have the option to selectively retain copyright over everything on their user and talk pages? If so, I think that path leads to license hell. If only images, how do we keep them reasonably differentiated without inspiring more Pioneer-12s? It might not be hard, but I don't think it can be done gracefully.
#2: Inertia and lack of differentiation between user space and the rest of Wikipedia. People already expect to be able to take items from all of Wikipedia under GFDL license.
Why would reusers even want or need to also have user pages? Also, from my experience, users in general do not like to have their user pages on other websites. So keeping user pages in the same database dump that reusers use has no practical benefit to anybody except maybe the person who creates the database dumps (exporting everything and only having one dump is easier).
Take the user pages out of the database dump. I don't see a problem with that. But database dumps certainly aren't the only method of reuse. We cannot base our policy on database dumps alone. Reusers want content, and our submission policy to date has been that all submissions are licensed for reuse. We cannot arbitrarily change that ex post facto for existing content.
If we're going to maintain sections where reuse is NOT permitted, I think we have an obligation to make that clear, and again, I think it leads to a real mess tracking what has been submitted under which license and where it can be used and reused.
#3: License hell as described in the next paragraph.
If we make an arbitrary exception, I think it could ONLY apply from whatever point we choose going forward. Current content has already been submitted under the old terms.
The old terms, as you put it, do not allow any NC or special use images. So what is your point? Do you mean to say that all NC and special use images now marked for deletion be deleted regardless of what namespace they were displayed from?
NC or special use? Please clarify further, as I want to be certain to answer the question you're asking rather than one I think you're asking.
--- Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com wrote:
NC or special use? Please clarify further, as I want to be certain to answer the question you're asking rather than one I think you're asking.
NC = Non Commercial Special use = can only be used on Wikipedia (or similar restrictions).
I agree that neither of the above are acceptable for images displayed in articles, but I maintain that both of the above are fine in the user and Wikipedia namespace. Reasons: *Our mission is to make encyclopedic content that is easily redistributable. *Making Wikipedia-specific content (aka details of the sausage factory) just as redistributable serves very little purpose. *There is very little value outside of Wikipedia for Wikipedian-specific images. *Private individuals have the right to restrict use of images of themselves and their friends. Not allowing users to do this will result in less sharing of these type of images in the community.
-- mav
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On 14/09/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
The only issue as I see it, is that we don't give reusers the option to not download user pages and other Wikipedia-specific pages. But that is a current technical problem; not a valid reason to forever forbid NC and special use images in the user or Wikipedia namespaces.
Actually, http://download.wikimedia.org *does* now carry filtered dumps which don't carry User: and Wikipedia: pages. But this doesn't solve the problem in hand, because we don't currently filter the *image* dumps in any way. This is actually a big problem for all sorts of licensing issues, because all the hard work of permission tagging is likely to be lost in transmission.
But one very relevant implication is that images will be redistributed even if they're not used *anywhere*, let alone if they're only used on user pages. Remember: images are not attached to pages, they are just referenced from them.
--- Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, http://download.wikimedia.org *does* now carry filtered dumps which don't carry User: and Wikipedia: pages.
Ah - That needs to be made much more explicit. Titles like all_titles_in_ns0.gz are buried in a rather long list at http://download.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/ and are fairly cryptic to anybody not familiar with MediaWiki.
But this doesn't solve the problem in hand, because we don't currently filter the *image* dumps in any way. This is actually a big problem for all sorts of licensing issues, because all the hard work of permission tagging is likely to be lost in transmission.
If the images are dissociated from their image description pages, then *all* of them are legally useless regardless of license.
But one very relevant implication is that images will be redistributed even if they're not used *anywhere*, let alone if they're only used on user pages. Remember: images are not attached to pages, they are just referenced from them.
Any use would need to follow the license on the image description page. If the GNU FDL is used, then the reuser would need to follow that license, if the CC-BY/SA is used, then the reuser would need to follow that license, if the CC-BY/NC is used, then the reuser would have to follow that license, and if the image can only be used on Wikipedia, then the reuser can't use it at all. The point is that downloading the image database en masse means that the reuser will need to follow the license of each image individually regardless of the presence of NC and used with permission images.
Recap: Since we allow multiple licenses anyway, any reuser would need to follow a whole bunch of different licenses. Adding NC and used with permission in ways that do not infect encyclopedia articles would not be an undue burden or really be anything special given that fact. So I don't see your point.
-- mav
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Daniel Mayer wrote: <snip>
The only issue as I see it, is that we don’t give reusers the option to not download user pages and other Wikipedia-specific pages. But that is a current technical problem; not a valid reason to forever forbid NC and special use images in the user or Wikipedia namespaces.
Forbidding such images for no practical reason smacks of fascism to me. So once the technical issue I mentioned is fixed, I see no valid reason for us to not be more permissive on image licensing in the user namespace (within the limits of WP:NOT a personal web page provider)
See Erik Möller (Eloquence)'s recent post to Commons-l:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2005-September/000077.html
"Creative Commons -NC Considered Harmful"
The page where he outlines why is:
http://intelligentdesigns.net/Licenses/NC
On 9/15/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
See Erik Möller (Eloquence)'s recent post to Commons-l:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2005-September/000077.html
"Creative Commons -NC Considered Harmful"
The page where he outlines why is:
seems to largle biol down to "you will not be compatible with current major projects". Since CC is not compatible with GFDL that isn't really andissue and the lack of compatibility has is own advantages.~~~~
On 9/14/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
It is still perfectly reasonable for a person to naturally want to show an image of themselves or other Wikipedias at say a WikiMeet without having to release those images under a license that would allow for extensive reuse. Out of respect to users, who contribute without pay and just for the fun of it, we have always been a bit lax on what users do with their user pages.
It's completely reasonable, but it's not necessarily a smart idea nor one our licensing scheme accomodates for. As it is, even User pages are included in our GFDL licensing. They can be reused accordingly and often are. I think we should either formally carve out a specialized niche for them as something distinct from the article namespace or not. Having them be an unspecified informal zone seems like bad policy for me, because it encourages an idea about "personal space" which is not currently covered by any of our official or legal policies.
I wholly support any approach that would keep User pages either out of the GFDL or out of our database ports, to be honest, though I'm not completely aware of what that would entail in terms of licensing requirements or technical ones.
Forbidding such images for no practical reason smacks of fascism to me. So once the technical issue I mentioned is fixed, I see no valid reason for us to not be more permissive on image licensing in the user namespace (within the limits of WP:NOT a personal web page provider)
Well I assure you there is no attempt at fascism here and I'm not quite sure I see the correlation with what I've asked and the political systems of Mussolini, Franco, or Hitler, except for the whole making the trains run on time bit, which I guess I'm somewhat inclined towards in my mannerisms. ;-)
FF
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
It's completely reasonable, but it's not necessarily a smart idea nor one our licensing scheme accomodates for. As it is, even User pages are included in our GFDL licensing
Now I think I understand where you are coming from. Correct me if Im wrong, but you think that having NC and special use images displayed on a page whose text is licensed under the GNU FDL to be legally incompatible or even illegal. This is not the case and is something that we hashed out many months ago and confirmed with RMS. So while having these images for practical purposes makes the whole document less reusable, the presence of the images is technically and legally allowed under the aggregation clause of the GNU FDL (see 8.7 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_Li... ).
Now by policy we want to make our encyclopedia as redistributable as possible so we do not allow NC and special use images in the encyclopedia. That is something I completely agree with and very strongly support. But the reason we do that is *not* due to legal incompatibility with the FDL. So parts of Wikipedia that are Wikipedia-specific need not follow the same rule and would still be perfectly legal.
They can be reused accordingly and often are.
Where has such use been intentional? Ive only seen cases where a reuser also publishes user pages just because they were included along with articles.
-- mav
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On 9/15/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
They can be reused accordingly and often are.
Where has such use been intentional? I've only seen cases where a reuser also publishes user pages just because they were included along with articles.
I don't have proof, but I suspect they're intentionally reused in articles. Because people see them on Wikipedia, they think that the images must be OK for use in Wikipedia articles. I strongly suspect this because I almost did so myself. Had I not decided to double-check the license, I would have. Many others won't double-check the license before referencing images in the article space.
Also, consider that many articles are developed in user subpages. This is another reason why we should be consistent with all licenses all throughout Wikipedia.
--- Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/15/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote: I don't have proof, but I suspect they're intentionally reused in articles. Because people see them on Wikipedia, they think that the images must be OK for use in Wikipedia articles. I strongly suspect this because I almost did so myself. Had I not decided to double-check the license, I would have. Many others won't double-check the license before referencing images in the article space.
Why the hell would anybody want to use an image from a user page in an article? The images Ive been talking about are of Wikipedians. Having images on user pages that could validly be used in articles in not something I support at all since Wikipedia is not a web page provider. Perhaps we have been talking past each other on this point.
-- mav
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On 9/15/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Why the hell would anybody want to use an image from a user page in an article?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beard
Sam
There might be cases that we can use images from user pages. The user page I wish to cite is of EN user Husnock. On his user page, he lists not only the decorations and ranks he has achieved, but also their ribbon bars. While, they are his own ribbon bars he earned for his valiant military service, we could reuse the images of the ranks and ribbon bars (with his OK) on relevant articles.
Though, one question I wish to ask about images on user pages is that are they technically orphans?
Regards,
Zachary Harden
On 9/16/05, Zachary Harden zscout370@hotmail.com wrote:
Though, one question I wish to ask about images on user pages is that are they technically orphans?
Regards,
Zachary Harden
the softwear doesn't think so
geni wrote:
On 9/16/05, Zachary Harden zscout370@hotmail.com wrote:
Though, one question I wish to ask about images on user pages is that are they technically orphans?
Regards,
Zachary Harden
the softwear doesn't think so
Pyjamas? :)
Alphax stated for the record:
geni wrote:
On 9/16/05, Zachary Harden zscout370@hotmail.com wrote:
Though, one question I wish to ask about images on user pages is that are they technically orphans?
the softwear doesn't think so
Pyjamas? :)
You don't wanna be messin' with the pyjamas image. She is not an orphan, technical or otherwise.
Alphax wrote:
geni wrote:
On 9/16/05, Zachary Harden zscout370@hotmail.com wrote:
Though, one question I wish to ask about images on user pages is that are they technically orphans?
Regards,
Zachary Harden
the softwear doesn't think so
Pyjamas? :)
Yes it helps to make the hardwear (Suit of armor) more comfortable.
Ec
On 9/15/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Now I think I understand where you are coming from. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you think that having NC and special use images displayed on a page whose text is licensed under the GNU FDL to be legally incompatible or even illegal.
No, I understand that images and text can be separately licensed. Hence all of the image tags.
My basic point is this, and I'll leave it at this: we should either have an explicit exception laid out to user pages (can have NC images, for example) or we should not. Having a policy of informal tolerance is not useful and not necessary. If there are exceptions, they should be worked out formally. I don't think we should give anybody the idea that they actually have a proprietary right to their user page -- it is hosted by the project, its purpose is for the project, and it can be redistributed like the project.
I am not trying to discourage community-building in any way. But I think we should figure out what exactly a user page "is" and what we allow or don't allow on it in a concrete sense.
Where has such use been intentional? I've only seen cases where a reuser also publishes user pages just because they were included along with articles.
I don't know about intentionality. But I think the horror which spread across this list when it was discovered that the Nazipedia had picked up user pages and had people with their names proudly proclaiming how they were loyal Nazipedia users was ample illustration enough of what I'm talking about.
I think there are a number of dangers (none of them legal!) with thinking that user pages are separate "personal" spaces if they technologically and substantially aren't... and I think having them be exceptions in any regards, including image licensing policies, should be codified one way or the other. Those are just my two cents, though...
FF
Hello all (oh, and first post to te mailing list for me, so please be gentle),
Fastfission wrote:
I wholly support any approach that would keep User pages either out of the GFDL or out of our database ports, to be honest, though I'm not completely aware of what that would entail in terms of licensing requirements or technical ones.
What if we forked off the user namespace into its own project shared among all other project (like the image mainspace was /kind of/ forked into commons)? We could put that whole project into a more restrictive license, and give it its own dump. Of course that depends upon another pipe dream, that of single signon across all projects, which is on top of some people's wish list already...
--[[en:User:grm_wnr]]
On 15/09/05, grm_wnr grmwnr@gmail.com wrote:
What if we forked off the user namespace into its own project shared among all other project (like the image mainspace was /kind of/ forked into commons)? We could put that whole project into a more restrictive license, and give it its own dump. Of course that depends upon another pipe dream, that of single signon across all projects, which is on top of some people's wish list already...
users.wikimedia.org? A very interesting corollary to single-login, though it might prove a bit of a steep learning curve having to interwiki everything...
On 9/16/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 15/09/05, grm_wnr grmwnr@gmail.com wrote:
What if we forked off the user namespace into its own project shared among all other project (like the image mainspace was /kind of/ forked into commons)? We could put that whole project into a more restrictive license, and give it its own dump. Of course that depends upon another pipe dream, that of single signon across all projects, which is on top of some people's wish list already...
users.wikimedia.org? A very interesting corollary to single-login, though it might prove a bit of a steep learning curve having to interwiki everything...
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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problem is that there is a geni over at the german wikipedia who isn't me.
I added a line in [[Wikipedia:Fair use]] which says:
"Fair use" images should only be used in the article namespace. They should not be used on templates or on user pages. They should be only linked to from talk pages when they are the topic of discussion. Because "fair use" images are only not copyright infringement on Wikipedia when used for strictly encyclopedic reasons, their use in other contexts on Wikipedia is most likely copyright infringement.
Does this sound reasonable? I also plan to create a little template which one can drop onto a user page (replacing an existing "fair use" image), which will say something along the lines of the above, with instructions as to how to link to the image if desired. The goal is to be polite but explain that the use of copyrighted images on a user page is probably copyright infringement and not allowed on Wikipedia.
Thoughts? Objections?
FF
On 9/13/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Do we have an official policy on images on user pages? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the use of copyrighted materials there in a way which did not qualify as "fair use" simply be copyright infringement, in the same way it would in the article namespace? Does the law make the namespace distinction? (That sounds like a silly question in a way, but I suppose I'm referencing "safe harbor" laws.)
In the end, I think this comes down to "should we allow copyright violations on user pages?" which sounds to me like the answer would be "of course not".
Boy, wouldn't it be fun to start enforcing this! Anybody in the mood to become "most hated user, especially among the young and brittle"? If the answer is definitely "no exceptions", it would be nice to have a quote from Jimbo Wales with his thoughts on this to use as a reference, since a lot of people have strong proprietary feelings about their user pages.
FF
Extreme lesbian support! sounds like a good idea to me.
On 9/17/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
I added a line in [[Wikipedia:Fair use]] which says:
"Fair use" images should only be used in the article namespace. They should not be used on templates or on user pages. They should be only linked to from talk pages when they are the topic of discussion. Because "fair use" images are only not copyright infringement on Wikipedia when used for strictly encyclopedic reasons, their use in other contexts on Wikipedia is most likely copyright infringement.
Does this sound reasonable? I also plan to create a little template which one can drop onto a user page (replacing an existing "fair use" image), which will say something along the lines of the above, with instructions as to how to link to the image if desired. The goal is to be polite but explain that the use of copyrighted images on a user page is probably copyright infringement and not allowed on Wikipedia.
Thoughts? Objections?
FF
On 9/13/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Do we have an official policy on images on user pages? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the use of copyrighted materials there in a way which did not qualify as "fair use" simply be copyright infringement, in the same way it would in the article namespace? Does the law make the namespace distinction? (That sounds like a silly question in a way, but I suppose I'm referencing "safe harbor" laws.)
In the end, I think this comes down to "should we allow copyright violations on user pages?" which sounds to me like the answer would be "of course not".
Boy, wouldn't it be fun to start enforcing this! Anybody in the mood to become "most hated user, especially among the young and brittle"? If the answer is definitely "no exceptions", it would be nice to have a quote from Jimbo Wales with his thoughts on this to use as a reference, since a lot of people have strong proprietary feelings about their user pages.
FF
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